


What Happened

by orphan_account



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Magic, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 00:50:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1838326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin doesn't understand why people are treating him differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happened

**Author's Note:**

> For "chain mail" and "worried" prompt at Camelot Land.

Merlin wasn’t late, but he was in a hurry. He narrowly avoided dropping the tray laden with the king’s breakfast as he rushed down the corridor, and did actually bump into a passing serving girl as he turned a corner.

“Oh, sorry!” he exclaimed.

Her brows were thick and heavy, nearly coming together in the middle, but she was otherwise pretty. She looked angry for a moment, patting down her dress to make sure nothing had stained it, when she raised her eyes to Merlin and suddenly her expression shifted. She looked worried. Almost...scared.

“It’s fine,” she assured him quickly. “No harm done.” She scurried away without another word, her footsteps _tap-tap-tapp_ ing on the stone floors.

Merlin frowned and tried to shake the encounter off as he resumed his earlier pace, but it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened recently. The servants, the knights, even Arthur—the man with whom he shared a _bed_ —had been treating him differently.

That was the main reason for Merlin’s hurry this morning. He couldn’t even begin to guess the reason for the change in behaviour, but he figured he had to start somewhere, so he thought maybe he’d try being a decent manservant for a change. He’d left Arthur’s arms early this morning in order to dash to the kitchen for a timely breakfast.

“Rise and shine!” Merlin said after setting down the tray and throwing the curtains open.

There was a groan from the bed as Arthur rolled over and pulled the duvet over his head. Merlin went back to the table and picked up the chunk of bread before walking to his king.

“It’s freshly baked,” he said, waving it by where he guessed Arthur nose to be.

Arthur poked an eye out. Merlin couldn’t tell if he was wary, annoyed, or still just half asleep. “Why’ve you gone and got it so early?”

“Seriously? Any other time it’s ‘Where’s my breakfast, Merlin?’ or ‘You’re late again, Merlin.’ Of course the one time I bring it when I’m supposed to—”

“Alright, alright,” Arthur said, sitting up. He took the bread from Merlin’s hand and tore a bite off. He chewed as he walked to the table. “I only meant that sometimes I like to wake up to something a bit different. Figured you’d know that by now, _Mer_ lin.”

“Something a bit—Oh.” Merlin chuckled. “Right. I guess I just thought...Nevermind,” he finished, shaking his head.

He started making up the bed while Arthur ate, and though he didn’t look, he felt Arthur’s eyes on him. It didn’t feel like the usual lustful gaze, or even a friendly, amused stare. Merlin couldn’t put his finger on what it felt like exactly until he finished fluffing the pillows and finally glanced up.

Arthur looked away the second he did, and that’s when Merlin saw _it_ again, in Arthur’s face the same way he had in the servant girl’s—Worry. Fear. Caution.

Merlin pushed the feeling down, though he longed to ask what was wrong. Perhaps he was imagining it.

“I need you to polish my chainmail again today if you can,” Arthur said, picking up a sausage. “There’s more boys from the nearby villages to train.”

The statement bothered Merlin twofold. First, because Arthur’s usual demand sounded more like a request, as though if Merlin couldn’t manage to find time to polish his armour, it would be perfectly acceptable. Second, because Arthur had been training new recruits almost nonstop of late, and Merlin couldn’t help but notice there were less knights around.

Merlin steeled his nerves and took a cautious seat beside Arthur. Arthur stopped chewing a moment when Merlin did, but then swallowed thickly, looking at Merlin curiously.

“Arthur,” Merlin began, “what’s going on?”

Arthur furrowed his brow. “How do you mean? There are recruits to be trained—”

“No, I know that. But you never say ‘if you can.’ It’s always an order. And there’s far less knights than usual, so I figure that’s why you’re training so many new ones. But everyone else is treating me oddly as well, giving me these looks like they’re worried I’ll strike them down or something.”

Arthur looked at the table. “Merlin, you...You know why there’s far less knights.”

Merlin frowned. He was pretty sure he’d know if he knew something or not. “No, I don’t. I woke up one day and it was like they’d disappeared.”

Arthur pinned him with another look, and this one was less cautious, more curious. Merlin blinked, waiting for some response, but got none.

Finally, Arthur got up and stood over Merlin, taking Merlin’s face in his hands and tilting his head from side to side. He peered at Merlin closely, looking deep in each eye, as though trying to ascertain whether or not Merlin was lying.

“Arthur, stop, you’re starting to scare me. Why does it feel like I did something wrong and no one’s telling me?”

Arthur went gentle then, kneeling by Merlin’s chair with a heavy sigh. He took Merlin’s hands in his own and licked his lips as he seemed to search for the right words.

Which only made Merlin’s nervous heart beat faster.

“Merlin. Do you remember when the Saxons invaded a few weeks ago?”

Merlin cast his mind back. It had to have been almost two months ago now, just after the harvest. Merlin had wanted to go with Arthur as he always did, stay by his side like he was meant to be, but Arthur had refused. There’d been a short argument, Arthur claiming as usual that he wouldn’t hear of it because he couldn’t lose Merlin, not to mention he couldn’t always be watching out for his clumsy backside, and Merlin had again yelled that he couldn’t lose Arthur, and it was unfair not to let him go when he’d been there for countless other battles.

Merlin couldn’t remember who finally gave in first, but he remembered there’d been clutching, and angry sex, Merlin taking Arthur into his body and never wanting to let go. And then Arthur was gone the next morning, having ridden out at dawn.

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that you rode out after me?”

“Of course I do! Did you really think I would just let you—”

“What do you remember happening when you got there?”

Merlin paused. It was blurry. There’d been a lot of fighting, a mass of bodies colliding, the clash of weapons on shields, arrows flying through the air. He remembered seeing the battle, riding up to it, but then...

Then there was nothing.

“I...I can’t remember,” Merlin said, pulse quickening. Why couldn’t he remember?

Arthur took a deep breath and squeezed Merlin’s hand. “I was injured. I’d been shot with an arrow.”

Merlin gasped. How could he not remember that? How could he ever forget nearly losing Arthur? Why had it never come up? There had to have been a wound of some sort, a recovery period, surely.

“You—”

“You saw me, Merlin. You were there, and you saw me on the ground. You thought I was dead.”

“No...”

Merlin didn’t want to even think about not having Arthur to hold anymore, to not see him smile or hear his voice. He couldn’t imagine Arthur dead and lifeless in his arms, never to be alive again.

_No!_

Merlin clutched Arthur’s forearms, needing to feel that he was still warm and alive. He didn’t know when he’d started shaking, and he was usually good about toning down how much he was worried, but for it to have actually happened, and for Merlin to have forgot...

“Merlin, calm down.” Arthur turned Merlin’s chair, making Merlin face him, and raised a hand to Merlin’s cheek. “I’m still here. You saved me. Like you always do.”

“But I don’t...How?”

He had to have used magic. He was terrible at healing spells, but if he was desperate enough, if his magic sensed his other half fading, it might’ve been possible that he’d done it. But if that were the case, Arthur would’ve said something. He would’ve been angry with Merlin for hiding such a secret for so long.

Arthur took another deep breath. “I didn’t see, because I was unconscious. But a few of the knights saw and explained it to me afterward. When Leon saw you running, he noticed I was down as well and called a group to circle around us. Elyan’s the one who saw everything actually happen. You pulled the arrow out and then there was this glowing, like a golden light flowing into the wound.”

“So I did—”

“Yes. It’s fine, Merlin, don’t worry about it.”

Don’t worry about it? All this time Merlin had spent thinking Arthur would hate him for being a sorcerer and now Arthur was telling him not to worry about it?

Merlin tried to find some hidden anger in Arthur’s eyes, but found nothing. He seemed to be sincere.

“Alright...But what does this have to do with there being fewer knights?” Merlin asked.

Arthur lowered his eyes, and then his hand. “I didn’t wake up right away when you healed me. I think when I didn’t open my eyes, it might’ve...upset you.”

Merlin couldn’t imagine it before, but now suddenly he could. He could see himself hunched over Arthur, fingers gripping the cold metal of Arthur’s chainmail. It had started raining, he remembered now. Arthur’s hair had been plastered to his forehead and Merlin had had Arthur’s blood on his hands, and a swipe of it had got on Arthur’s face when he brushed the hair to the side. Arthur’s lips had been so pale, and his eyes had refused to open, even when it felt like Merlin had poured all the magic he possessed into him.

He didn’t need Arthur to continue; he recalled everything now, and the memory hit him like a broadsword to the chest.

“I’m not sure how to explain it exactly, but the knights said it was some sort of...magical blast. A force of energy or something, that seemed to erupt out of you. It made the earth shake and everyone except those closest to us died. Their...their bones had shattered. And then you fainted.”

“Arthur, I’m so sorry, I don’t have words for how sorry I am, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay, Merlin,” Arthur said, wiping away the tears that had started to fall.

“How can you say that? I killed—” Merlin couldn’t even finish due to the sudden lump in his throat.

“That’s why I didn’t say anything. Merlin, when I woke up, it felt like I’d just pushed myself too hard in training, and that’s all. You took two more days to wake up, and while you slept I told everyone who’d been there not to talk to you about it. I knew you’d hate yourself for it. But I didn’t think you’d actually forgot.”

That’s why everyone looked at him the way they had been. That’s why everyone was frightened of him. Because they thought he’d kill them if he got angry.

All those knights...All those men under Arthur’s command that Arthur had trained, bonded with, befriended, only to have lost because Merlin thought Arthur had died...

Merlin had once asked Gaius if he was a monster, years ago. Gaius had said no. Clearly, he’d been wrong.

“Merlin,” Arthur said, getting to his feet. “I told you, it’s fine—”

“It’s not fine! No matter how you look at this, nothing will make it fine.”

“It was a mistake,” Arthur insisted. He held Merlin’s chin and made Merlin look up at him, wiping Merlin’s tears again with a thumb. “If I had magic and I was as powerful as you, and I thought you’d died? I’d probably do the same thing.”

“You can’t know that for sure, you’re just saying that. You can’t imagine what it’s like to...to be this.”

“I know you’re a good person, Merlin. From what the knights described, it sounds like you could destroy Camelot single-handedly if you wanted to. But you haven’t. You’ve been with me, letting me tell you to polish my armour and muck out the stables. That’s how I know it was a mistake, that you’d never have done it in any other circumstance.”

“But all those men—”

“Merlin,” Arthur said sharply. “Stop. At the rate that battle was going, every last man would’ve died anyway. It was a lost cause. At least you provided them a quick death and prevented them from bleeding out on the battlefield.”

“Is that what you’ve told yourself to justify it?”

It sounded like a weak excuse to Merlin. It sounded like the man he loved had just come up with a story to allow himself to get to sleep at night.

“It’s a fact, Merlin. Both sides were already suffering heavy losses. The only thing your interference did was save my life, and that makes all the difference. Camelot still has her king. You still have me.”

Merlin didn’t like it. He didn’t like the thought of losing control like he had, of not remembering it afterward. He didn’t like the thought of himself as no better than all the sorcerers who’d actually been evil that Uther had put to death.

But in the end...he supposed it was no different than when he’d let Kilgharrah free. Hundreds of Camelot citizens had died then due to his actions. He may not have killed them himself, but he’d still been responsible.

It was simply another burden to bear. But at least now Arthur knew. At least he wouldn’t have to bear it alone.

“I’m sorry for lying to you,” Merlin murmured.

Arthur sighed in exasperation, but a twitch of his lips gave away the underlying relief. He wrapped an arm around Merlin’s shoulders before kissing the top of his head.

“I’m just glad we’re both still alive, you idiot."


End file.
